functions that return nonstandard extra values

["George J. Carrette" <GJC@MIT-MC.ARPA>]

    Date: Mon, 4 Nov 85 22:35 EST
    From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
    To:   GJC at MIT-MC.ARPA
    cc:   common-lisp at SU-AI.ARPA, AS%hplabs.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
    Re:   functions that return nonstandard extra values

        Date: Mon,  4 Nov 85 22:00:48 EST
        From: "George J. Carrette" <GJC@MIT-MC.ARPA>

    	       If a user was really interested in efficiency he wouldnt
        use the hairy system-provided hash table implementations anyway.

    This is completely the opposite of our point of view, which is that it
    is the job of the system to provide usable and efficient tools.

Oh, I love your use of the royal WE/OUR here. Lets not make this into
a OUR-COMPANY (RA RA!!!) vs others kind of thing. I'm talking
about what lispmachine systems provide NOW. Remember how long it
took the lispmachine crew to adopt semantically correct SETF, long
after other implementations had done so. The track record is not good.
In fact, the track record is one of unabated changes that continously
break major applications packages in minor ways, diverting resources,
and all in the name of progress. (RA RA).

If your soapbox stand is that it is my(i.e. LMI's) view that
the system does not have to provide usable and efficient tools then
a retraction of your statement is in order.

But the Common-Lisp system lacks many useful basic tools. Functions for
manipulating circular queues, or recursive alists (like TRI's), or
resolution nets. It lacks a DEFSTRUCT that can deal with
the same kind of data that STRUCT in C deals with. (Disk Controller blocks,
Filesystem records, network packets defined by programmers in the non-lisp
world, etc). There are many things a user will have to build himself.